$60 million miscalculation?
If my memory serves me correctly, the Job Keeper program was announced before employers had any forms to fill out, yet they are being treated as the cause of the "miscalculation".
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Banana shaped bed in order?
Jeff de Jager, Coila Creek
Open letter to councillors
If I read Agenda Item CCS20/022 correctly, Eurobodalla Shire Council management is proposing to sell four commercial blocks at lower Surfside.
According to the proponents, the land is not subject to erosion and the market is favourable. I would suggest that the real estate market is not favourable given that we are currently in the midst of a Covid 19 pandemic and the market response is still unknown.
I would further suggest that the sudden urge for council to sell these sites relates to the decision of Bega MP Andrew Constance to dump the lower Surfside community, and transfer responsibility for resolution of the Surfside erosion problem to a task force headed by NSW Planning, and including the Eurobodalla Shire Council.
The council knows only too well that this task force will decide the future of Wharf Road and Lower Surfside as the next stage of the Coastal Management Plan (CMP), and if as expected, a policy of "managed retreat" is implemented, the council's land, along with the rest of the land in that area, will plummet in value.
The Council-owned Surfside land may not be subject to immediate coastal erosion, but it has been classified vulnerable to coastal hazards and inundation, and the NSW Coastal Alliance will insist that the council abides by its duty of disclosure. If the council markets the land prior to finalisation of the CMP, prospective purchasers must be fully informed of the implications of a "vulnerable area" classification under the new Act. They must also be informed of the restrictions Council has applied to Lower Surfside /Wharf Road DAs, including lightweight construction and the raising of the buildings above projected sea levels. Council's requirement for a covenant on the land title forcing the owner to remove all structures and forfeit the land, if it is affected by four high tides in any one year, must be revealed.
Ian Hitchcock
Eurobodalla Regional Coordinator
NSW Coastal Alliance
Personal take on fires
a new book is being launched that carries gripping first-hand accounts of coming through Australia's worst bushfire season on record and how the journey to recovery has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
When The Smoke Clears: Surviving the Australian bushfires was digitally launched on May 20.
Author Chrissy Guinery (Falling Up Stairs, Room to Breathe) takes us inside the smoke-drenched landscape of the South Coast as over three months she and her family are evacuated numerous times, separated by raging fires and ultimately, her daughter's home is lost among the hundreds destroyed on New Year's Eve in the Bateman's Bay region.
'My middle-daughter's house is burning down and I've lost contact with my eldest daughter as the fire front threatens her home. It's the last day of 2019 and it feels like the end of the world.'
So begins this fast-paced, personal and grassroots account of living through a torturous fire season and finding a way to push through to recovery.
"This is a story of resilience and hope," Chrissy says, 'but it begins by bringing the reader into the reality of being surrounded by out of control bushfires for three months, and ends with a plea not to forget those who are still a long way from recovery."